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No Comfort in 100 Days
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, in his weekly column for The Indian Express, countered several statements made by the Narendra Modi government, including the claim that India's economy has "expanded by nearly 90 percent" in the last 10 years.
"Admirable — if it was correct," Chidambaram says.
He also took a dig at Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, saying that while she borrowed certain provisions from the Congress' manifesto in her Budget speech, such as the apprenticeship scheme and employment-linked Incentive scheme, the government has done nothing to implement them so far.
"Mr Modi and his ministers were sworn in on 9 June, 2024. The BJP claimed that a third-term Modi government will have a plan ready to be rolled out in the first 100 days. The 100 days will be completed on September 17. The government has shown no urgency to roll out the two Budget announcements. Contrast the zeal with which the government tried to pass the Wakf (Amendment) Bill and push the lateral entry into senior government positions; they were forced to put both on ‘pause’."P Chidambaram
The Good Life of the Raj in a Calcutta Hotel and Club
"Once you get past the unsightly surroundings and the shabby entrance, you enter a world from a forgotten past on the seventh and eighth floors," says journalist Karan Thapar in an article for Hindustan Times, reflecting on his stay at a British Raj-inspired boutique hotel called 'The Glenburn' during his recent trip to Kolkata.
Describing his experience further, Thapar adds:
"There’s a morning room where I breakfasted, reading a three-day old copy of The London Times. It felt more relevant than a contemporary edition of an Indian newspaper! The Times’ Court Circular carried details of the King’s programme — he was in Balmoral, perhaps shooting grouse — and when I looked up, I found the Victoria Memorial staring back at me. Curzon couldn’t have asked for a finer view as he sipped his morning coffee!"Karan Thapar
Transparency is the Right Drug for Ayush Regulation
In an opinion piece for Hindustan Times, Dinesh Thakur says that in the backdrop of documented harmful effects of certain AYUSH (Ayurvedic, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy) medications, more needs to be done to regulate this industry.
"Traditionally, there are five levers to regulate the pharmaceutical industry: Advertising, safety, efficacy, standardisation, and good manufacturing practices. The Ayush industry today is subject to only the first lever — that is, its advertising is regulated. The common explanation offered by the Ayush industry to evade providing data on the safety and efficacy of their products is that these have been used for centuries by many satisfied consumers. Except, this argument is not true."Dinesh Thakur
Perception Test
Coomi Kapoor, in an article for The Indian Express, says that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the impression that he would continue his unilateral style of functioning in his third term, the government's decision to "backtrack" on several issues over the last few weeks provides evidence to the contrary.
"The facade of 'business as usual' got dented after the proposed amendments to the Waqf Board Act, announced with fanfare, were dispatched to the cold storage of a joint parliamentary panel, following allies’ objections. A UPSC advertisement for lateral entries in government was hastily withdrawn after protests that it violated the reservation quota policy. The revamped pension scheme for government employees seemed yet another sop to electoral interests. A Broadcasting Bill to include online content seems to have been put on the back-burner too."Coomi Kapoor
Pak vs Bangla: An Upset That Was on the Cards
Tushar Bhaduri, in an article for Financial Express, says that the result of the recently-concluded Pakistan-Bangladesh Test series shows that Bangladeshi cricket may be "turning the corner".
Explaining why, he says:
"A prominent reason could be that the wins were secured in clinical fashion in the second half of games. A target of 185 in the fourth innings of the second Test could have prompted anxiety, especially with arguably the biggest series result in the country’s history on the line. But the top six batsmen all made valuable contributions – even if the individual scores in themselves were not eye-catching – with grizzled veterans Mushfiqur Rahim and Shakib Al Hasan coolly getting them over the line."Tushar Bhaduri
Vice-Hijacking: Vice-Signalling on Steroids
In an opinion piece for The Economic Times, Indrajit Hazra reflects on the practise of "virtue signalling" – when someone tries to show that he/she is a good person by expressing opinions that are considered morally acceptable.
Hazra brings several contemporary issues within the ambit of virtue signalling, including the reaction of the Mamata Banerjee government to the RG Kar rape and murder case, and calls it "virtue hijacking".
"The latest manifestation of virtue hijacking can be seen in the competitive demand by political parties for 'justice' against Kolkata's RG Kar rape-murder victim. You have the curious case of virtue-signalling from the very people suspected of facilitating the obstruction of justice, and making investigations into the crime that may lead back to them difficult. As a social media wag succinctly put it, it's like John Simon joining protests led by Lajpat Rai and shouting 'Simon, go back!'"Indrajit Hazra
Caste Moulds the RSS Colossus
Prabhu Chawla, in an opinion piece for The New Indian Express, says that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been learning to tweak its identity and ideology due to the prevalent sociological, political, and economic narratives.
Of late, Chawla says, the RSS has been taking its ideological foes head on to save its credibility and acceptability as a "unifying force of Hinduism".
"Nowhere is this sentiment more obvious than in the top leadership’s recent somersaults over caste convulsions. Last week, the leadership made it unambiguously clear that it was not against both a caste survey and reservation in government jobs. After a meeting of over 300 senior functionaries in Kerala, including the chiefs of its frontal organisations, its publicity chief Sunil Ambekar said: 'In our Hindu society, we have the sensitive issue of our caste and caste relations. Of course, it is an important issue of our national unity and integrity. It should be dealt with very seriously, not on the basis of electioneering or election practices or politics'."Prabhu Chawla
Tuesday’s Tabula Rasa: The Harris-Trump Face-Off
In an article for The New Indian Express, Shankkar Aiyar says that the US presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on Tuesday, 10 September will be a 'tabula rasa’, a Latin term borrowed from John Locke which means 'blank slate'.
He says that come Tuesday, the world will fill this blank slate "assuming meanings in what is said — and in what is not."
"Tuesday is the next moment of reckoning for Harris and Trump as they face off in a presidential debate in Philadelphia. Harris, who arguably turned her conspicuous invisibility in the Biden regime to her advantage, must step out of the veil of ambivalence and present her script—the prose and the playbook. Trump squandered his early-mover advantage in a debate with his self, wallowing in claims of not losing the 2020 polls. To reclaim hope, he must start from scratch."Shankkar Aiyar
Gets Under the Skin
"Why does the Right dislike political correctness?" asks Mukul Kesavan, in an opinion piece for The Telegraph.
The reason, he says, is that the Right in every country is committed to mobilising a demographic majority defined by race, ethnicity or religion to win political power.
"The reason why politically correct voices like Ravish Kumar and Dhruv Rathee on YouTube, Mohammed Zubair on X, Hartosh Singh Bal in journalism, and Harsh Mander in the NGO space continue to infuriate the Right despite its regnant position is the fact that its bigotry, while politically dominant, isn’t respectable. It’s hard to make majoritarianism respectable because there is something fundamentally unlovely about a politics designed to help Gullivers squash Lilliputians. Appeasement, love-jihad, cow protection, pseudo-secularism are useful buzz words for stirring people up but a talent for scare-mongering is no substitute for a claim to political virtue."Mukul Kesavan
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